Resource_Local and JTA are transaction managers (methods of doing transactions). This is not the property of database but the component responsible for coordinating transactions. JPA and JTA transaction managers are different. JPA transaction manager is responsible for JPA transactions and you want to use one if you are only doing JPA transaction. JTA transaction manager is general purpose transaction manager and can enlist other resources such as JMS queues in transaction. Typically Java EE containers employ a JTA transaction manager for EJBs, JPA entities, etc.
JPA implementations have the choice of managing transactions themselves (RESOURCE_LOCAL), or having them managed by the application server's JTA implementation.
In most cases, RESOURCE_LOCAL is fine. This would use basic JDBC-level transactions. The downside is that the transaction is local to the JPA persistence unit, so if you want a transaction that spans multiple persistence units (or other databases), then RESOURCE_LOCAL may not be good enough.
JTA is also used for managing transactions across systems like JMS and JCA, but that's fairly exotic usage for most of us.
To use JTA, you need support for it in your application server, and also support from the JDBC driver.
Here is an excerpt from the extremely useful article (published on the Apache TomEE website), which can also help answer the OP's first question (the link to the article is below).
Comparing RESOURCE_LOCAL and JTA persistence
contexts
With <persistence-unit
transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">YOU are responsible for EntityManager
(PersistenceContext/Cache) creating and tracking...
You must use the
EntityManagerFactory to get an EntityManager
The resulting EntityManager instance
is a PersistenceContext/Cache
An
EntityManagerFactory can be injected via the
@PersistenceUnit annotation only (not
@PersistenceContext)
You are not allowed to
use @PersistenceContext to refer to a unit of type RESOURCE_LOCAL
You must use the
EntityTransaction API to begin/commit around
every call to your EntityManger
Calling
entityManagerFactory.createEntityManager() twice results in
two separate EntityManager instances and therefor
two separate PersistenceContexts/Caches.
It
is almost never a good idea to have more than one
instance of an EntityManager in use (don't create a
second one unless you've destroyed the first)
With <persistence-unit
transaction-type="JTA"> the
CONTAINER will do EntityManager
(PersistenceContext/Cache) creating and tracking...
You cannot use the
EntityManagerFactory to get an EntityManager
You can only get an EntityManager supplied by the
container
An EntityManager
can be injected via the @PersistenceContext
annotation only (not @PersistenceUnit)
You are
not allowed to use @PersistenceUnit to refer to a
unit of type JTA
The EntityManager given by
the container is a reference to the
PersistenceContext/Cache associated with a JTA Transaction.
If no JTA transaction is in progress, the EntityManager
cannot be used because there is no
PersistenceContext/Cache.
Everyone with an EntityManager
reference to the same unit in the same
transaction will automatically have a reference to the
same PersistenceContext/Cache
The
PersistenceContext/Cache is flushed and cleared at
JTA commit time
Anyone interested in learning the Java Persistence API - please do yourself a favor and read the full article here: JPA Concepts: JPA 101.